The present invention relates to techniques for securely storing information on a non-secure file server and distributing the securely stored information among clients authorized to read and modify the information.
In communications networks, file servers are typically employed to store files accessible over the network. With the advancements in digital data storage and the comparatively low cost of data storage, it is now commonplace to have one or more file servers that have large data storage capacities. Networks employed to interconnect various clients with the file server are often not secure and the file server itself is often not secure. Moreover, there are certain applications in which it is desirable to store data on file servers administered by an organization independent of the clients that have a need to store the data. For example, a company may desire, for purposes of redundancy, to store their information on one file server which is secure and located within the corporate environment and another file server which is remote from and independent of the corporate enterprise. This may be done to protect against the possibility of natural or other disasters which could destroy the information stored in the secure file server on the corporate environment. Additionally, it may be more cost effective to outsource the storage function for large volume data storage. It would therefore be desirable in certain applications to be able to store data securely on a non-secure file server while being able to share the data among a number of clients that are authorized to have access to the data.